The winners in life's race

by Arabella B. Buckley

Lastly, king among all sea-flying birds is the gigantic petrel, the Albatross. What a grand fellow he is when he is once on the wing, though he has some difficulty in starting. Flying onward, onward, without resting day or night, his pure white body near down to the water, his large head and short thick neck slightly bent, and his long, narrow, black wings, often measuring ten feet from tip to tip, widely outspread, he beats a few powerful strokes, and then sails along, using his head and tail as rudders to turn his wings to the wind. Often he will follow a ship for days, sailing round and round in circles, and yet keeping easily ahead, while all the time his bright eye watches the water to catch every chance of food. Jelly-fish, cuttle-fish, and real fish of all kinds, together with any dead creatures he may find afloat,—all is food to him, and his powerful beak will cut through the toughest morsel. For days and days he will fly on, never tiring, and feeding as he goes; and if he alights for a time upon the water he rises with difficulty, unless the waves are high and bear him up on their crests; and when he comes to rest it is on some island in mid-ocean, where he seeks a mate, and brings up his nestlings either on the low ground or on the top of a high mountain, in a hollow lined with grass and moss. Truly, if we look at the far-flying albatross we must acknowledge that the wings of a bird have given him the command of the sea as well as the land.

Fig. 38.

Albatrosses and Penguins.

He forms a strange contrast to the curious stunted bird form which we may find in those same islands where the mother albatross lays her eggs. For there, in the islands of the South Pacific, close by the side of the albatross nest, are whole groups of strange-looking birds, the Penguins, with their fat, white, feathered breasts, their dark head and beak, their curious hind legs set right at the end of their body, and their small paddle-like wings, covered with short stiff feathers, quite useless for flight. We have come upon a strange story here, for our penguin is a low relation, of the guillemots and puffins whom we left in the north, and, like the great northern auk, which has now been extinct for many years, he has lost the use of his wings. He has no dangerous enemies on these rocky inaccessible islands, where he and his companions form dense penguin rookeries upon the ground, unless it be the large gulls or skuas which steal the eggs. Nor has he any need for flying, for the sea is all around him, and even if he wishes to migrate to warmer waters in winter, he does so by swimming. Therefore we find that his wings are lost to him for any flying purpose, and nothing can be more awkward than he looks, shuffling or hopping along with outstretched arms, like a fat baby, till he comes to the water’s edge. But when he dives in and swims it is quite a different matter. Then his easy wavy motion, like that of a seal, shows at once that his stumpy imperfect wings are excellent fins, while his feet serve him both as oars and rudders.

Thus we have traced our swimming and web-footed birds to their extreme types—the strongest flyer in the albatross, and the lowest, most fish-like bird in the penguin; while, if we were to follow the pointed-winged frigate-bird in his flight, or see the pouched pelican in his home, we should find another group of these web-footed birds, no longer merely standing upon rocks, but perching upon the boughs of trees, and building their nests by the side of rivers in warm countries nearly all over the world, or among the mangrove bushes of the tropical islands.

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And now, if we return to our northern shores and pause upon the broad wet sands at low tide, we may chance to find whole flocks of active little birds hovering and running and wading in the water, or pecking on the sands; and the double-noted whistle of the Curlew, or the musical cry of the Peewit (or Lapwing), tell us at once that they are “waders,”—birds with bare legs, flat toes, and long beaks, which drop down on the muddy flats by the sea, seeking their food at the edge of the water. There they are, Curlews and Dunlins and Sandpipers, Plovers and Knots, Oystercatchers feeding on mussels and limpets, and Turnstones tilting up the lumps of mud to find food beneath. One and all they are running hither and thither, to seize here a shrimp or sandhopper or a tiny fish, there a worm or a sea-slug; making the most of their time before the sea comes up and covers their feeding ground.

Fig. 39.